Anna to the Infinite Power

Anna to the Infinite Power
Directed by	Robert Weimer
Written by	Robert Weimer Mildred Ames
Produced by	Bruce Graham Ned Kandel (Executive Producer) Robert Weimer
Starring	Martha Byrne Dina Merrill Mark Patton Donna Mitchell Jack Gilford
Cinematography	Glenn Kershaw
Edited by	Peter Hammer
Music by	Paul Baillargeon
Distributed by	Tiger Film
Release date	1983
Running time	105 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	Unknown

Anna to the Infinite Power is a 1983 science fiction/thriller film about a young teenager who learns that she was the product of a cloning experiment. The film was based on the novel of the same name by Mildred Ames. The film has acheieved a unlikely cult following, mostly in part to its constant TV airings on HBO during the 1980s and for its haunting signature score "Anna's Reverie," which was composed by Paul Baillargeon, who wrote the music for the film and has a cameo scene in which he played himself, in which he was the music teacher of Anna's brother Rowan.

Synopsis

Anna Hart was always an odd child--a genius, a shoplifter, desperately afraid of flickering lights, and with strange prophetic dreams. Simultaneously, several strange things begin to happen. A mysterious neighbor named Michaela Dupont (a piano teacher who has been watching Anna, and has kept photos of her and of another girl taken in 1970 who much resembles Anna) moves in next door to the Harts. And, most frightening of all, Anna sees her exact double on television one night (and learns that her double has the same family setting as hers).

As her investigation of the other Anna--Anna Smithson--progresses, she begins to learn the truth: the truth about a woman named Anna Zimmerman who has been dead for twenty years, and most important, the truth about herself: that she was part of a cloning experiment by Zimmerman to create the perfect girl, one who would grow into a duplicate of Zimmerman herself, right down to the traits that Anna indeed shares with her. It also turns out that her mother volunteered for the cloning project but the father didn't want anything to do with it. We also learn, through Anna's dreams, of Zimmerman's past; growing up during World War II as a Jew in Nazi-controlled Germany, where she, like the present Anna, was a pianist and child prodigy who would play a part in the Nazis' plans for the genetic engineering of humans.

But, just as the current Anna is beginning to act normal and learn more about her background--thanks in part to her brother Rowan and to secret assistance from Micheala--we also learn of six other Annas, this after her mother told her that they (the people involved with the cloning project) wanted to re-evaluate Anna for a few days at a facility at Albacore Island. While there, Anna becomes suspicious when the phone in her room is blocked and as she snoops around notices the experiments they are performing, and when Rowan learns that he has not heard from Anna, he sneaks into the facility to see his sister. Anna and Rowan confront Dr. Henry Jelliff, the person who kept Zimmerman's genetic cloning experiments alive at Albacore Island, who tells her that she is now a 'normal' person and suggests that she should change her name to Eve as a way to start a new life. But, after Anna and her brother were free to go, Jelliff reveals to Michaela, whom he suspected was not following her assignments, that he is secretly grooming yet another Anna to grow up to become the future Zimmerman; they plan to kill the remaining six Annas, including Hart and her family, once the girls are normalized.

But Jelliff's plans to eliminate the girls backfire when Michaela reveals herself to him as Anna Parkhurst, the original product of Zimmerman's cloning experiment (she was the other girl that resembled Anna in the 1970 photo from the beginning of the film); and, like her Mother/Creator, she knows how to duplicate the process. Since she is aware of his motive, because he had Zimmerman killed and she knew about the seventh Anna all along, the adult Anna turns the table on him by forcing him to hand over all seven of the Annas, and the materials for the experiments, to her. Michaela/Anna takes the Annas to a secure location unknown even to Jelliff, to keep the authorities from finding out and to silence Jelliff permanently.

Continuity

There is a point where only one Anna is running down a hallway and hiding. While running down the hallway, her hair is left long and free-flowing. When she gets in and out of her hiding place, however, her hair is done up in an elaborately braided hairdo.

Connections

The opening credits of the television series Big Blue Marble can also be seen in the film; the show's production company also co-produced this film.

In popular culture

Elements of this film can be seen in a 1993 episode of the television series The X-Files, "Eve", about a group of cloned children who were trained to kill. Although some saw this as a homage to the film, others who are fans of the film consider this episode derivative given that the producers of The X-Files fail to acknowledge this film as the inspiration for the episode.

There was also a rock band that took their name from the book. They played and recorded music in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, from 1995 to 2000 and were best known for their song "When the World Ends".

A story line in the NBC series Heroes involving several identical looking women, (Nikki, Jessica and Tracey so far) and a doctor who "created them" named Zimmerman would appear to be a nod to Anna.

DVD releases

In 1986, RCA/Columbia Pictures home video released a VHS of the film, but its successor Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, which currently owns the rights to the film, have yet to release it on DVD.

Cast

• Dina Merrill - Sarah Hart
• Martha Byrne - Anna Hart
• Mark Patton - Rowan Hart
• Donna Mitchell - Michaela Dupont/Anna Parkhurst
• Jack Ryland - Graham Hart
• Loretta Devine - Ms. Benson (Schoolteacher)
• Jack Gilford - Dr. Henry Jelliff
• Gail Weed - Clara
• Virginia Stevens - Nurse Grap
• Marilyn Rockafellow - Mrs. Smithson
• John Wardwell - Farmer
• Susan Lowden - TV Newscaster
• Warren Watson - Dr. Barrett
• James Louis Fleming - Dr. Randall
• Julie Araskog - Nurse
• Kent Cottingham - Furniture Mover
• Stuart Cole - Albacore Security Guard
• Paul Baillargeon - Himself

External links

• Anna to the Infinite Power at IMDb